New Year, New Me!

As I think most of you know, my best friend Jess is getting married this summer and she has asked me to stand at her wedding. What better motivator to get back in shape then wedding photos!

So Monday was the day.

I spent the weekend planning out my menu and my workout routines. If there's one thing I know about healthy living, it's that planning is the most important step. It's not enough to say "I want to lose weight and build muscle". You have to have specific targets and time lines. You have to know the actions it will take to get there and be dedicated to them. And you have to give yourself the tools to succeed. I plan for success and I plan for failure. I reward myself for doing well and sticking to the plan, but if I slip up, I make sure I have some relatively healthy junk food around in pre-portioned amounts so if I cheat on my diet it's maybe a piece of whole wheat banana bread instead of half a box of chocolates.

I set reasonable goals. Diet and exercise five days a week, two free days. In my experience, I can't stick to anything more strict than that for more than a few weeks, so even though I would like to tell myself that I'm going to stick it out for six days a week, I know it isn't reasonable for me and I would be setting myself up to fail.

So with all my plans and my healthy groceries and feeling fully committed, yesterday I started my new health regimen. The first step was to get on the scale. Or in this case, my shiny new Wii Fit. 156lbs. Yikes!

But that gave me a place to start. My goal is to get to 130lbs by June as I think this is the weight where I am the healthiest.

And John is on board too, which surprised me! Usually he shies away from this stuff because with his high metabolism he can usually get to his target weight by making only minor changes. He's actually signed up for a membership at a gym though because he wanted access to their squash courts, but he's been working out and taking classes there as well.

I'm two days in and so far so good. I was worried that making such drastic changes would be hard on my system and willpower, specifically my sugar addiction. But it hasn't been as hard as I thought it would! I've been eating six small meals a day and working out for 45 minutes each morning and so far I haven't felt at all deprived. And I know that in a few more days, I will start to see improvements on the scale (the Wii Fit puts it all into graphs! lol), and that will make it even easier to stay motivated. I'm also not putting a lot of pressure on myself for the first few weeks, as I think that at this point I will probably lose weight just by not eating Christmas cookies anymore. I'll step it up more in a few weeks if I start to plateau.

It's a great feeling to know that no matter what else happens in your day, you're making positive changes for yourself. Life is all about finding ways to be better!

Aunt Debbie, I know you're on board! Anyone else want to lose weight with me?